


but for the moment, I'm selfish

by iron_spider



Category: Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Post-Canon, References to the short story ‘Snowscape’
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25037308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: Todd is still Todd, my Todd, real and solid and here with me, all the time, finally.But he’s still asleep.If you can even call it that.His Noise is quiet right now, and those are the times I hate most. They make me feel like I’m sinking, like the hope Ben mentions so often is impossible, that the hope that grows in my chest is a weed that needs to be plucked out.But when it’s not quiet—when it’s not quiet, that’s when I clutch my hope tight and vow never to let it go.Because when his Noise is not quiet—
Relationships: Viola Eade/Todd Hewitt
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68





	but for the moment, I'm selfish

**Author's Note:**

> So I finished the entire Chaos Walking book series and I fell in love with it and I had to get this out of my system. I'm very much looking forward to the movie in January, and Tom and Daisy are exactly what I pictured while I was reading and during this fic, too. Hope you enjoy it :)

I continue to stare at him. 

I’ve memorized every detail now, as if I hadn’t before, but now it’s the details of details. Now it’s him times a hundred, a billion, and I’m not distracted by his voice or the things he’s saying or not saying or the way he’s looking at me—

The freckle on his nose. Like the flick of a paintbrush and a drop landed just so. I stare at it, I devote time to it, I lean in and I look and maybe I cry a little bit, because there’s no stopping that these days. Todd is still Todd, my Todd, real and solid and here with me, all the time, finally. 

But he’s still asleep.

If you can even call it that.

His Noise is quiet right now, and those are the times I hate most. They make me feel like I’m sinking, like the hope Ben mentions so often is impossible, that the hope that grows in my chest is a weed that needs to be plucked out. 

But when it’s not quiet—when it’s not quiet, that’s when I clutch my hope tight and vow never to let it go. 

Because when his Noise is not quiet—

I barely know how to describe it. In the beginning it was just little flickers, little gasps of life, faint enough that half the time I thought I was imagining them. But recently—

His Noise has been flaring up, and when it does, it fills the Spackle-made hut. It’s all different colors, warm and all-encompassing and everywhere, his own voice questioning and interpreting and narrating, soft like the best kind of song. I see all the things he’s been seeing, memories that are his and memories that aren’t, and everything is warm when his Noise opens up like that, like it’s become its own living, breathing thing, settling on my shoulders like his arms wrapping around me. It’s everything I loved about his Noise before but more and more and more, cascading around the room bright and shining, like he’s trying to show me that he’s here, he’s here, he’s not going anywhere. 

_I ain’t ever parting from you again. Not even in my head._

But every time it happens, I think he’s gonna wake up. And every time, he still doesn’t.

I run my hand over his forehead, heaving a sigh that’s been building in my chest. “Listen,” I say, leaning on the stone tablet that Todd’s been laying on for almost two months now. “Listen. I’m getting a little tired of this, alright? We’ve had enough time apart, too much for me, too much for you, and this is—” My throat goes tight, and I run my fingers through his hair again, watch the way his chest rises and falls where the wound is completely healed now.

If it’s healed, why isn’t he awake? Why not, why not? I don’t get it and it makes my face all hot when I think about it too hard because it frustrates me so badly—

Because after everything, after every bit of everything, I only wanted one thing. One thing above all the rest of it and that was him safe and here he is, unsafe. The memories are still fresh and nightmarish in my head because he was dead, Todd was dead no matter what Ben says, and despite his Noise now and all the feeling in it when it opens up, he still isn’t moving. It reminds me too much of the beach, the end, the worst case scenario. 

Dead, dead, dead. Dead in my arms and dead to the world and the world so much darker because of it.

I feel so much stronger reading him his mother’s book. When I talk to him, just—just me, my own words, I feel weird, almost lost, like this isn’t my place. He would have done anything to keep me safe and he did that, and I said I’d do the same and look where he is. 

I try again. Because I need to keep trying.

I stop touching him, wiping at my eyes, and then my tiredness takes hold for a second or two, and I cross my arms on the tablet and rest my forehead there. 

“I’ve had beef stew every day for the past week,” I say, my voice a little muffled. “I’m becoming beef stew. I don’t think there’s any food I hate more at this moment than beef stew.”

I feel stupid and I look up again, because looking at his face is good inspiration. “Ben thinks that women can have Noise,” I say. “He insists on this, that I can just—wish hard enough and I’ll be able to find it within me or something, I don’t even know. Well, he didn’t say wish. He didn’t really— _say_ any of it, he—showed it all to me, in his Noise, you know, like he was doing—”

I shake my head. What the hell is wrong with me? I feel like I’m prolonging Todd’s time in the coma with every stupid thing I say and God I just want him to wake up, I just want him to wake up.

I try to reset. Try to start again. I look over at his mother’s book like she might be there to give me some advice, to fill me with strength, and I figure I’ll start reading again in a couple minutes. 

They’ll probably be bringing beef stew for lunch, soon.

I reach out and take Todd’s hand in my own. I entwine our fingers, like we’ve done before on more than one occasion, but every time it knocks the air out of me. 

“I feel so lost,” I say, without thinking about it, and my eyes hurt with how hard I’m fighting against tears. “Things were so hard before, but I at least knew you were out there, that we were fighting for each other, and I could just—strive for the next time I’d see you.” I swallow over the lump in my throat and stare at him. “But now I’m with you all the time and I still _miss you_. You’re right in front of me and I miss you.”

His face stays unchanging, soft puffs of air coming from his mouth. I haven’t given up yet and I’m not giving up now, and I don’t think it’s inside me to give up on Todd, not really, because the things I’ve done for him and the things I’d still do rage inside of me with the truth of what he is to me.

How does someone mean more than the whole entire world?

He does, and that’s it, and I’m unsure of a lot but I’m not unsure of that.

I am unsure of what time it is, where Ben is, whether or not 1017 is going to try again today. My eyes hurt and my heart hurts and I squeeze Todd’s hand in my own, trying to will him to wake up. 

I keep hold of his hand and lean down on the tablet again, resting my forehead on my forearm and closing my eyes.

~

In my dreams Todd is smiling at me.

We’re still holding hands and we’re walking along the river like we did before, but there’s no urgency now, no horror behind us and unknowns ahead. We’re just walking, leaves crunching underneath our feet as we lean into each other’s space, and Todd’s Noise is like it is now. All-encompassing and warm as the sun on my face and full of future thoughts, full of everything he feels about me, and he’s not hiding it like he was for what felt like forever, because he knows I like to see it and hear it and he smiles at me and blushes when I hear certain things. 

I bump my shoulder against his. “I never knew you were all romance,” I say, all his plans still soft and loud at the same time, all his whispered words of wonder directed at me.

“I ain’t,” he says, not looking at me now, looking straight ahead and smiling.

But his Noise says _Viola Viola Viola yer all I think about all the time why are yer hands so soft how’s she do that, ain’t it unnatural to be so soft all the time especially after everything she’s been thru_

And I laugh and he laughs but then something changes, and his Noise is still flowers and declarations and something calm and tempestuous at the same time, but he turns to me and holds my hand with both of his own, now, eyes meeting mine.

“Just keep on talkin’,” he says, quiet, nodding. “Okay? I’m coming but I need to hear you out there. That’s it, that’s all there is, I just need to hear you, alright? Just...don’t give up on me just yet.”

I stare at him because I know this is a dream, I know it, and is this me projecting? This has never happened before, whatever this is, and he leans in and presses a long kiss to my cheek before I can think any further, and for a second it’s like his thoughts are wrapping around my thoughts _outside_ of his Noise, like they’re gently asking permission to get inside my head, and are my thoughts outside my head? Can he hear me? What’s happening?

“Viola,” Todd whispers against my cheek, still clutching at my hands, and I can feel his heartbeat.

~

I wake up to a hand on my shoulder. 

I startle awake, wincing, still holding tight to Todd’s hand like a lifeline. I’m about to glance over my shoulder to see who it is, but Todd’s Noise is alive now, that beautiful warmth something I can sink into and live in, and it almost feels more vibrant than anything I’ve ever seen before.

_He’s everywhere_ Ben shows in his Noise, beside me.

I don’t know what that means but I nod anyway because I can almost feel what it means, and it feels like when Todd wakes up he’s gonna be more like Ben, and I’ve been thinking that for a while. I’ve been trying not to think it because it scares me and I know Ben can see that despite my lack of Noise, but I realize that now I’m thinking _when_ Todd wakes up as opposed to _if._

And Todd can only ever be Todd. I know that now, after everything. 

Todd’s Noise is so many different things at once, and Ben and I just sit there and absorb it. He’s thinking about his mother, like he always is, trying to create an image in his mind even though he never really remembers exactly what she looked like, because he was too young. Ben and Cillian are there, and Manchee and Angharrad, and Todd sees memories that are real and ones that aren’t, ones that never got to be, some of them including me—me getting to meet Cillian, me coming to the place they called home.

I squeeze his hand tighter. 

He’s connected to the Spackle now, too, and he seems to be trying to branch out, learn more about them, tracing across the planet and searching and searching and searching—

He’s so active that my heart soars because it feels like he’s gonna wake up any moment, and then—

I see what I was just dreaming. The exact same thing, us walking together, Todd kissing me and holding my hands and asking me to keep talking to him.

“I was just dreaming that,” I say, and all the questions that were in my head then pop back up again like little question marks, and they feel like the questions that always positioned themselves in Todd’s Noise when we were first getting to know each other. Little curious shouts that he tried to hold back, painted red.

I look back at Ben and he’s staring at Todd, with so much love on his face that I have to look away again. 

_I said you had the capability of having Noise if you so choose_ Ben shows. 

“I don’t have Noise,” I say, and strangely, I look for my own Noise among Todd’s. Todd’s overwhelms everything, even Ben’s, but I’d know if I had Noise and I don’t have Noise. At least not yet. 

Ben smiles. _Might be the beginning of something. He’s different, now. The same, but different, capable of more. And you’re you and what you are to him._

I hear my own name in Todd’s voice and see all our memories together, piled on top of each other like he’s trying to relive all of them. I hear him cry out for me like he did so many times when we were apart, and I’ve seen all those memories since Todd has been here like this, heard how he felt then and it hurts so much, so much _so much_ , as much as when I was dying.

I squeeze his hand again and I kiss his knuckles, unsure of everything but so, so sure of him. 

“Todd, it’s Viola,” I say, stupidly, holding his hand and feeling desperate. “I’m here. I’m here, I’m waiting for you.”

His Noise _flares_ for a moment, and I feel like I feel everything he’s ever felt, and his love for me spans miles and miles and more than he’s known in his lifetime and it nearly knocks me out, brings tears to my eyes, and I reach out and clutch at his shoulder and maybe now _maybe now—_

Then it all stops. All at once, and it’s so abrupt that I feel taken aback. I let go of his shoulder and sink further into the chair, still holding onto his hand but close to an entire breakdown. 

“Don’t give up,” Ben says, with his real voice, and he pats me on the shoulder. 

_Just...don’t give up on me just yet._

“I’d never give up on him,” I say, chastising my past self for ever doubting him while he was stuck with the Mayor. I know he never doubted me, but I doubted him so often. What was I thinking? Is this punishment for that?

Ben hums a little bit. “And you’ll get a crick in your neck if you keep sleeping like that.”

~

I don’t leave Todd’s side for anything, including when Lee and Wilf and the others head out to search parts unknown. Lee came here to say goodbye to me, and he saw me through Ben’s noise which I know is still a little weird for him. 

I still see his feelings for me in his Noise, feel him holding them back. They used to move something in me, but now they don’t mean anything anymore. He’s my friend, that’s it, and I want him to be safe out there, I want them all to be safe, but my head is clouded and if I had Noise it would just be _Todd Todd Todd._

Lee looked at me like I did have Noise, and it was saying exactly that.

It’s been days since they left, even more days since my dream, and Todd’s Noise hasn’t risen up like that in a while now. In bursts, but nothing like that, and I’m going crazy, I must be.

The only meal recently that hasn’t been beef stew was some other kind of broth and horrifically, I found myself missing beef stew.

I’m definitely going crazy. 

I pace around Todd, in circles in circles in circles, and I’m not mad at his silence because it’s not his fault. I’m mad at 1017, who still suffers with his band while everyone else has started their healing. It isn’t enough for me. Nothing could ever be enough, for the rest of my life, even if (when) Todd does wake up. 

How could 1017 have done what he did?

How could he have made a mistake so big?

I’ve asked myself these things a million times but the answers never come. Just more anger and I feel like I’m full of that now, and I wonder what everyone thinks of me, I wonder what my parents would think, if they were here. 

If they knew everything I’ve done.

I cover my face with my hands because I’m shaking now, and I want to scream Todd awake, shake him awake, do anything I can do to make him _wake up_. I’m facing away from him and I suck in a couple wavering breaths and I hope Ben doesn’t come in here while I’m having a massive breakdown, or anybody else, let alone anybody else. 

I try to calm myself down. In and out, in and out.

I think about Todd holding me by the fire. I think about when he wrapped the bandages around my arm, and he cupped my face in his hand with the kind of gentleness and care I didn’t know existed. Even though I should have, because I knew he existed. 

I came to this world for him. I endured all of it for him.

I turn around and approach him, planning on saying something that I haven’t said out loud yet. Because I should have, because it’s true, because it doesn’t scare me anymore. Because the only thing that scares me is the possibility of a life without Todd. I can face everything else if he’s there with me.

I walk over and sit in the chair that’s normally Ben’s and I’m still shaking with my panic, but there’s a kind of resolution that’s gripping me, and Todd isn’t entirely silent right now. It’s not the normal Noise he puts out when things are good, but a low, anticipatory buzz. 

I try to catch my breath.

I take his arm and lift it up, and then I lay my head on his chest, draping his arm over my shoulders. I close my eyes because the tears are coming again, _again, of course, again._ I feel his breathing, his heart beating.

“I love you,” I say, just like that. “I love you, Todd. I love you. Come back. Wake up, come back to me.”

It hurts, to say it, because it’s not the way I ever wanted to—I can’t look into his eyes and see his face change, can’t watch his Noise bloom with understanding. But I had to say it because it’s true and because I know he’s in there. He’s in there, he’s listening. He needs to hear it. He needs to know how much he’s loved. How much he’s _needed_. I don't think I’m ever going to need another person in the way I need Todd.

I lay there forever before it happens. 

But boy, when it happens. 

It feels like the whole planet moves.

[](https://ibb.co/dcz5MZ3)

My name. Just my name. Everywhere, everywhere, in every tone of voice I ever could have imagined and some I couldn’t. Loud, soft, everywhere in all kinds of colors and touching all kinds of memories, like stars streaking across my mind. His voice, _his_ , my name in his voice and he used it as a weapon before but this is not that, this is everything he’s ever known or will know in one word, deep and sure and shaking and firm all at once. 

I can’t believe it. How it feels. How much it means.

I sit up, moving from under his arm and taking his hand, overwhelmed as it continues. Images flashing and hardly catching because there are so many. Some are real but there are more that aren’t, and he’s imagining and imagining and imagining—us older, us different places, us exploring, us building a life. I’m vibrant with him, I’m happier than I’ve ever seen myself and it spreads and fills up my chest and I’m happy _now_ , and I see us kissing and laughing and rounding up a hoard of children and oh my God, oh my God—

His hand twitches in my own.

My heart nearly stops but the repetition of my name doesn’t, and it sounds like he’s underwater, amongst the clouds, on a mountaintop, screaming it and breathing it and whispering it, cherishing it on a church altar. Pressing it into the palm of my hand with a kiss.

His eyelids twitch now, too.

“Todd?” I stammer, holding his hand so tight now that I’m afraid I’m hurting him. “Todd? It’s Viola. Are you—are—”

I cut myself off because his brow furrows. 

His Noise is wild now, still shouting, chanting my name, but it’s as if he’s pulling himself out of a deep hole, dark and lost but light flooding in. There are asking marks everywhere and my name, my name, my name, and he turns his head to the side. 

“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Todd? That’s it. That’s it, you’ve got this, Todd. Keep trying, I’m right here, you can get to me.”

My name swirls and dips and gasps and grows and grows and grows, and he’s seeing more light now, so much light that it’s like it’s eclipsing all the memories, the questions, the plans. I stare at his face and he’s opening his mouth and he’s and he’s and he’s—

Quiet. All of a sudden, quiet, all of it stopping. It’s just my breathing. His. 

Then an image of my hand in his. Us, here. My name again, so softly. Like it’s something precious, and my heart aches with the way it sounds. 

But then. 

“Viola?” Todd rasps. 

“Yes,” I say, scrambling, too loud, too loud for how quiet he was, but I’m on my feet and hovering over him like a lunatic and cupping his cheek like he cupped mine. “Yes, it’s me. Todd, it’s me, I’m here. Stay with me.” I’m holding his hand still, like I can’t let go.

Todd is all question marks now, some quotes from his mother’s book in my voice, images of the beach, but his Noise starts repeating my name again, softer and softer, full of reverence. 

He opens his eyes. He looks at me.

Part of me had worried, for a while, that he wouldn’t remember me. In the very beginning his Noise seemed distant, unknowing, like he couldn’t place anyone. But I haven’t allowed myself to really think about it all along, I’ve pushed it down and buried it deep because it was impossible, it wasn’t allowed, things were bad enough, but I worry now for a brief moment now that even though he’s said my name that he doesn’t really know me, that he’ll be disconnected from his memories and his wants and he won’t realize who I am. 

But then he smiles. Then his eyes trace over my face, and his Noise gets brighter and more excited and my name, my name everywhere.

“Viola,” he says again. 

Todd.

Awake.

Looking right at me.

My mind is glitching out, becoming something feral and out of this world, and I clutch at him and stare and stare and next to me, he looks like the definition of serenity. And suddenly I’m worried, taking in that expression, and I let go of his hand and paw at his collar bone and glance back and forth between his face and his chest. Still healed, not blistering or boiling with that angry wound that nearly took him from me. But I can still see it like it’s still there, and I’m panicking.

“Do I need to get someone?” I ask, my mouth dry, and I’m torn between falling into the love and softness of his Noise and the pure insanity of my own head. “Are you—do you need something, someone, uh—”

“Don’t you go anywhere,” Todd says, and he’s holding onto my arm now, his grip a little weaker than I remember. He’s still staring at me and tracing over my face with his eyes and there are little asking marks in his Noise again, but it’s still powerful and overwhelming with the joy of being awake and the memories still piling on top of each other but now that he’s conscious he’s trying to work through them, trying to understand why he’s seeing all this, what the hell is going on—

But me, I’m like the sun in his Noise. I’m so bright and full of life and he holds me in such high regard that it makes me dip my head down against his shoulder, because how can anyone think of me like that? Especially him? Him, and all he’s done, and how I think about him? How much I care about _him?_

I let go of his hand and just huddle up against him. I’m insane I’m insane he’s awake he’s _awake—_

“Viola,” he says, and I feel his hand in my hair, and I’ve been waiting for this day for what feels like a lifetime, so why am I faltering? Why am I blacking out?

Todd clears his throat, once and then again. 

“Viola,” he says another time, and he’s carding his fingers through my hair now, and that makes me cry harder and I turn my face into his neck, embarrassed. He laughs a little bit, in what sounds like disbelief. “You said you—you _said—_ ”

“I meant it,” I say, though I can hardly tell if he’s heard me, it’s so muffled and full of tears. “I meant it, I’ve meant it since almost the beginning. I didn’t know back then but I knew, somewhere inside me. I knew. When you saved me from Aaron the first time.”

His Noise covers us both, and his other arm comes up around my back. I’m half on top of him now, leaning completely on him and over the stone tablet, only one foot solid on the ground. But Todd pulls me closer and his Noise is saying _Viola Viola Viola_ in the softest voice I’ve ever heard. 

“I don’t—my head’s all mixed up,” Todd says. 

That sends me into a different mode and I pull back to look at him. But he doesn’t look like he’s in pain or anything, and this time it’s him that touches my face, and once again I’m aware of the fact that _he’s awake he’s awake oh my God he’s awake—_

“But you were—here the whole time,” Todd says, looking in awe of me. “Readin’ my ma’s book, talking to me and just being here, and Jesus, I was lost, Viola, I don’t know where I was but I was somewhere else but you, you—you were here and pulling me back and I—you, you’re—you _said_ you loved me. You said that and I heard it and I already knew it but it—brought me back. Brought me back to the surface.”

I blow out a breath. My head is swimming like I’m going under but he’s awake he’s awake and he’s brushing my hair back from my face and his Noise is showing his hopes for the future again, and I see us laughing in wheat fields in warm coats and he pulls me in close to him there and I can feel the warmth from that and from here and now, too.

He looks at me intently, and I can see it in his Noise before he says it out loud. Can see the nervousness and these terrible, unworthy feelings and everything that’s lead us here. But he says it anyway. 

“I love you too,” he says. “I love you, Viola. Always have, since the beginning. Like you said.” He closes his eyes and his Noise is flaring in fear that he shouldn’t have said it and I want to assure him that it’s everything I’ve ever wanted to hear, even though I knew, even though I could feel it. He closes his eyes for a long moment, still brushing his thumb back and forth across my cheekbone. I lean into the touch, and he opens his eyes again. “Sorry I slept for so long. I know that’s—”

“Can I kiss you?” I blurt out, like an idiot.

He stares at me. 

But his Noise is saying _KISS ME? KISS—VIOLA, PLEASE KISS ME—_

“Viola,” he breathes, eyes so soft and caring and he loves me, he loves me.

I lean down and press our lips together. He’s awake and I need to go get someone and I need to tell Ben, I need to let Todd reunite with his father, I need to get him food and water and I need to get him walking again, need to let him see Angharrad who has been patiently waiting for him to come back. I need to go tell everyone, _everyone_ , but for the moment, I’m selfish. 

I’m selfish, and my Todd is awake, and I kiss him.

Because the future is all around me, or what he wants of the future, and I want that too. I want every bit of it. I want to help him through his recovery. I want to help him through the ways his Noise is new, the ways he’s connected to the Spackle now, like Ben is. The ways he might be connected to me.

I want to do everything in the world with Todd Hewitt. 

So I kiss him. And he laughs against my mouth and kisses me back.


End file.
